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New Mount Stewart chapter as house and gardens are reunited

ONE of Northern Ireland's most famous stately homes and gardens is to be united with its historic demesne for the first time in more than 50 years.

Mount Stewart estate on the Ards Peninsula was first divided in 1957, when the gardens were taken over by the National Trust.

The world famous house and most of its contents have been owned by the conservation charity since the last chatelaine of the house and last surviving child of the 7th Marquess, Lady Mairi Bury handed signed it over in 1977.

However, the Londonderrys, who owned the entire estate, retained around 900 acres of demesne land until putting it up for sale recently.

A few parties showed an interest, but sale has been agreed between the family and the National Trust - a £4 million investment increasing the area under its control to 1,000 acres.

It comes as the £7.5m project to restore the house at Mount Stewart enters its final weeks.

National Trust manager at Mount Stewart, Jon Kerr, said it is a big year for the property and a "new chapter in its history".

"With a story dating back hundreds of years, the landscape will now extend beyond the house and garden on the shores of Strangford Lough to include the surrounding 1,000 acres of rolling parkland and woodland which make up the de mesne," he said.

"In time, visitors will be able to explore extensive woodland, previously unseen walled gardens, farmland and a range of historic monuments and buildings."

Lady Rose Lauritzen, granddaughter of Edith Lady London-derry said she was delighted to share her family heritage.

"Mount Stewart for me is more like a relation or a best friend and having experienced so much pleasure all my life surrounded by the exquisite thousand acres, I feel very strongly that it should be shared by everyone," she said.

Although visitors will not be able to access the full demesne for a some years, the Trust has already opened up areas of the previously unseen Walled Garden and Dairy.

There are plans to once again grow soft fruit in the restored Vineries and Peach Houses.

The Vinery at Mount Stewart is the only significant historic glass-house left in the demesne which is home to the ancient, 'White Syrian' vine.

It is the oldest vine in Ireland and the second oldest in the UK, planted one year after the Hampton Court Vine, which dates back to 1768.

Mount Stewart, originally known as Mount Pleasant, was the Irish seat of the Vane-Tem-pest-Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry.

The third Marquess of Londonderry (1778-1854 increased the family's finances greatly with his second marriage to Lady Frances

Anne Vane-Tempest, the greatest heiress of her time.

This saw the refurbishment and enlargement of the newly renamed Mount Stewart, with the Londonderrys spending £150,000 on the refurbishment but giving only £30 to famine relief in Ireland in the 1840s.

This was despite the fact that the Londonderry estates were directly affected by starvation.

The fourth Marquess married the widow of Viscount Power-scourt and lived at her home, Powerscourt, near Dublin.

The restored Mount Stewart house will open a range of new rooms to visitors in April.

* GLORIOUS: Mount Stewart House and gardens, above, pictured in the 1960s, top right an aerial view of the Ards Peninsula where the estate is situated, below, a survey drawing of the property. Inset below a picture of the Rose Garden in more recent times